5. Yana
Fyodor’s Rules #28 - Know your enemy, then do more research.
The house Fyodor had secured for us in Chicago was the nicest we had been in for quite some time. Weirdly, it wasn’t rigged for destruction. I caught myself double-checking the locks from time to time until Fyodor finally snapped and told me to update the security if I was so worried. We were in Irish territory, of course I was worried.
It made sense that Fyodor had hidden us somewhere he was comfortable, and he claimed he had allies amongst the Irish. I had questioned him about it a few times, the idea of being here making my skin crawl. He didn’t want to be somewhere where we would be noticeable, and that made some sense. We would both be easily recognisable in Bratva territory. I had to hope that the Irish wouldn’t immediately recognise me if they saw me on the street. Not trusting the Bratva was suspicious to me, but Fyodor wouldn’t discuss it any further. Could we really trust people who weren’t family?
On second thought, family had betrayed us once before, so we couldn’t rely on them either.
Being back in Chicago was odd, it was familiar and yet different at the same time. I felt like I was a ghost, haunting the places I had frequented when I was alive, but they had changed irrevocably since my death. I was hesitant to go outside, worried that I would run in to one of the boys before I was ready. Though I was sure they wouldn’t be in Irish territory.
Fyodor had given me folders on each of them. They included what they had been up to, what they were doing now, and analyzed their strengths and weaknesses. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to open them yet. I didn’t want to see what they looked like now, or that they were living their best lives.
Ones that we had planned to spend together.
The folders were sitting on the coffee table, taunting me. I could have put them somewhere I wouldn’t see them, but I knew if I did that, Fyodor would just move them again. Not only that, but he would then give me a lecture about not letting the past control my present actions.
“Ghosts belong in the past, rybka, leave them there,” I could already hear him as he murmured the words to me.
Sighing, I poured myself a large glass of wine. If I was going to dive into my past so deeply, I needed wine. A lot of wine.
Grabbing the folders, I also picked up my writing pad so that I could make notes on anything of interest. I needed to be prepared if I was going to win this battle. I wanted my vengeance. These weren’t the boys that I had grown up with anymore. They were the men who had betrayed me. I shouldn’t have needed to remind myself of that fact.
Squaring my shoulders, I took a sip of wine and opened the first folder. Of course, Nikolai was on top, he had always been the self-proclaimed leader of our group. Never mind the fact that his vampiric race meant that he had needed us all in a way that left him vulnerable. I set the photo on the coffee table, and I examined it as I began my notes. His oddly colored eyes looked back at me like he was staring—one silver, one red. I wasn’t sure where Fyodor had gotten the photo, and I didn’t want to know. I wasn’t used to seeing Nikolai look so relaxed. People really changed a lot in a decade.
There was nothing in the notes about Nikolai having new people to feed from, it was a weakness of his Scion lineage. Fyodor had tried to break him of the dependency many times, and each time, it almost killed him. No matter how Fyodor pushed, Nikolai could only take blood from his loved ones. And given how healthy he looked, the rest of the boys must have been feeding him well.
An image floated into my mind that I quickly shut down. These men were my enemies, not spank bank material.
I took notes on his movements and his favorite spots to spend his time. He was a member of the Summer Court, but he hadn’t risen very high. Nikolai likely wouldn’t be the easiest to get close to, but he wouldn’t be the hardest.
Alexei wouldn’t be the easiest either. I sighed as I switched folders and placed Alexei’s photo next to Nikolai’s. He was more than half a foot shorter than his brother, at 5’8, and more wiry and lean. He looked rather scruffy, if I was being honest, not that it didn’t work for him. But I knew the real monster that rested behind that smirk.
Or at least I thought I had.
Alexei had gained quite a reputation as an interrogator, judging from the notes Fyodor had collected on him. But somehow that wasn’t hard to believe, he’d always been a dark soul, known to inspire fear more than anything else. It was no surprise to find that he had joined the Autumn Court. As one of the Grandmother’s Children, he was practically born into it.
Alexei was someone I needed to watch out for. Fyodor had spent a lot of time training me to resist various types of torture, but that didn’t make me immune. One wrong move, and this could be over before it began.
Pasha was next, and I was surprised to find out he was still with the boys, but that was likely Nikolai’s doing. My brother had always been a little too soft for our world, so when we were younger, Nikolai always covered for him with Fyodor. He still looked soft, his silver hair swept back, immaculately neat and styled, he looked far too clean for someone so deeply involved in the Underground. The full sleeve tattoos of stars and planets that swirled on his arms was more delicate than menacing. The facial hair he now sported, clearly sculpted with care, suited him and he looked like he should grace a runway or movie screen rather than a dark alley. But I also knew that his charm was part of his Scion ability, and he had honed it, exactly like my ability to get into people’s minds.
Romanian by birth and lineage, Pasha was a Zburǎtor. Some people would call him an incubus, while other legends said he was a type of dragon. The one Pasha was most fond of came from a poem his mother read to him before he came to stay with us. It told how certain stars fell to earth because they didn’t want to be parted from the beautiful women they saw walking below.
As young children, every time we told him this made him an alien, he would get upset.
Regardless of his lineage, Pasha was likely the easiest mark if I needed to approach the boys. He had always been the easiest to manipulate and looking over the dossiers that Fyodor had put together, that hadn’t changed over the past ten years. He was a Spring Courtier through and through.
I had deliberately left Lukas’ folder until last for a few reasons. He was the one that had hurt me the most. Fyodor had raised all of us with the firm belief that we could only trust each other, but also that you should expect betrayal from any side at any moment. But truly, I hadn’t expected it from my brothers, and that’s how they had almost killed me.
Lukas had always been different, though. He and I had been inseparable since I had first arrived at Fyodor’s home. It had just been him and Nikolai when I was first adopted. I still remember the way Nikolai had looked down his nose at me, telling everyone he didn’t want a girl around. Sure, his tune had changed over the years, but Lukas had been on my side since day one. Whenever we had talked about the future, we had always spoken as though Lukas and I would be together. Like it was already a done deal, an arranged marriage almost. Of course, there had been some minor fights about it over the years. When I turned sixteen, the boys had declared that they were all my boyfriends, but Lukas always knew that he was first in my heart.
Now, thinking about him made me itch for a blade in my hand.
Lukas would be the hardest of my brothers to get close to, and not just because I wasn’t sure I could resist the urge to stab him the moment I saw him. Lukas was a Scion of the Wild Hunt. No one was sure where they originated. Some people said they were descended from the wild elves, other myths said they were ghosts, or Norse gods. But much like Pasha’s lineage, it didn’t matter where they had come from. What mattered was their abilities.
Once Lukas got hold of someone’s scent, he could track them across the planes, never losing them. When Fyodor and I had fled Chicago, he’d spent a small fortune on an arm cuff that hid my scent, which I still wore to this day. It had been the only way to make sure Lukas couldn’t follow us and finish the job they had set out to do. I knew it worked at a distance, but I wasn’t willing to test it up close unless I had no choice. Just going to the ball had me worried enough. As soon as we had gotten to Europe, I had dyed my hair dark, just in case. The boys had always liked my blonde hair, so I hoped that would throw them further off our trail.
If Lukas caught a whiff of my scent, our entire plan could be ruined before it even got off the ground. I just had to hope that after a decade, he wasn’t looking for me anymore. Maybe he had forgotten what I even smelled like. I am sure there had been a myriad of women since they had betrayed me.
I refilled my glass and set the files off to the side, straightening the four photos on the table in front of me. Four targets. Each one would need to be taken out. But if we took out one too early, it would spur the others to close ranks and come after us. I looked over my notes, wondering if there was a way to drive a wedge between them.
My siren abilities could do a lot to control the mind of someone in the short term, but making lasting changes was difficult to achieve, and I generally couldn’t maintain it on multiple people. It was a shame, it would have made this so much easier. But mind control wasn’t the only way to turn someone to our side.
I kept being drawn back to Pasha. If we could get him on our side, we could get more information on the others, maybe even use him against them. It wouldn’t be the first time I had turned someone against their family or their friends to get what we wanted. I doubted it would be the last either.
Picking up Pasha’s folder again, I examined it in more detail. Surely he wouldn’t still be the charming young boy I remembered, who was always getting away with everything. I certainly wasn’t the same girl I had been back then. It was odd, allowing myself to think about them all, and to remember things I had long forgotten. I had spent so long making sure I didn’t think about them any further than imagining the revenge I was going to claim.
They had tried to kill me and failed. Now I would not risk the same outcome, it’s the reason Fyodor and I had spent so long away. Preparing for war, getting stronger, gaining allies, and building what we needed to win. Turning my abilities and skills into a weapon, not just a tool.
It wasn’t like I was under any illusions. I didn’t think I was the only Siren who used her powers to get what she wanted, almost all of us did. But I didn’t know any other Sirens to talk to or ask. When we were in Europe, I had thought about tracking some down, Greece wasn’t that far away, and there would have to be some living there. However, what would be the point? Fyodor, through his experiments and training when I was younger, had taught me to explore my powers more than any other Siren could teach me. I had learned on my own just how far I could push things and how deep I could get into someone’s mind before they became useless. Over the years, Fyodor had made sure I knew everything I needed. And when that wasn’t enough, he helped me find the tools and magic I needed to achieve more.
By the time Fyodor returned to the apartment, I had made my way through another glass of wine but had the beginnings of a plan. I knew I would need to run it past him first, to make sure it didn’t conflict with anything he already had in place.
“I was not expecting you to be up, rybka. You need to make sure you get enough rest, hm. We have a lot to do in the coming days.”
I handed him my writing pad as he sat down beside me, letting him go over my notes. I watched him make a couple of changes, tilting my head in contemplation, but not disagreeing with him. We always saw things differently.
“It is a good plan, but it needs to wait until after the ball. I don’t want them to find out we are here before then. The ball is neutral ground, so even if they realize who you are under your mask, they will be able to do nothing about it.”
Sighing, I stretched and flexed my fingers a few times. I was itching to get to the fight, to do something useful. “Why are we waiting till the ball? We can’t do anything to them there either. And so what if they see me?”
I saw him shake his head at me out of the corner of my eye. “We want them to see you, rybka, but not you. They won’t know it’s you, but they will still be intrigued. How could they not be? Such a beautiful woman, and one they have not seen before? My contacts tell me Nikolai is considering marriage contracts for himself and the others. We need to distract them from that. Cut them off from their allies, and not let them form new ones. You need to draw them in, but not let them get too close. Let them think they are hunting you while you lure them away, you see?”
This was a game we’d played before. Where I acted like prey, drawing our quarry in until a trap could be sprung on them. It was a plan that had always worked.
“Just wait until you see your dress, rybka. I can’t wait to see you in it.”
I was surprised, and a tad disappointed, that he had bought me a dress, as I had been looking forward to the chance to go shopping. It made sense, though, as I was supposed to be hiding and every woman of the Underground would be out shopping for a gown.
“Tomorrow? I’ve had too much wine to try on dresses tonight.”
His laughter lifted my spirits, and I set the folders and photos back on the table. That was enough thinking about the past. It was time to plan for our future.